The Husband taught our co-op yesterday. It was about his area of expertise: political advertising. It allowed him to pull out his coffee table books about political posters and make his own playlist of political televisions ads from history for the kids to view.
Despite all that, because he’s “not a teacher” he got a little nervous briefly before class. Of course, in the end, it went perfectly fine, even great. You can see him below taking votes from the co-op’s mock election based on their homemade ads. But his feelings reminded me of two things.
First, it reminded me of how many people feel before embarking on homeschooling, that they simply “can’t” do it. In actuality, if you’re determined and willing to learn, then I firmly believe that nearly anyone can. I come from a background of teaching and education, and I’ll admit that gave me the confidence and some background conceptual thinking to get me starting in homeschooling, but most of the things I do with my kids aren’t things I learned from teaching in school or from my time getting a master’s degree. They’re things I’ve learned from curricula or from other homeschoolers or have simply made up as I went along.
Second, I was reminded of how I often undervalue my own skills. I am not always a perfect teacher, but I have found a calling to teach and I find a great deal of satisfaction in doing so. As our Destination Imagination teams started up again and science returned to the Rowhouse, I taught – not just my kids, but a few others as well – for two days straight last week and found myself feeling much more fulfilled. I am often very dismissive about teaching. “Anyone can do it.” “It’s just teaching.” But having a sense of how to educate and organize a lesson is an actual skill, whether you get it from years in a classroom or a homeschool and it’s one that, as a homeschooler, we should value in ourselves.